Bin Bulaye Baarati Review

There are set expectations from 'Bin Bulaye Baraati'. You know that it isn't a classic in the making and hence want two hours of time-pass fun that doesn't allow you to tax your brains but instead surrender to the antics of a dozen odd comic players on the screen.

To think of it, the film doesn't even have its (only) hero - Aftab Shivdasani - leading from the front. There are as many as 4-5 other stories playing other than his 'prem kahaani'. There is Om Puri who has hots for his neighbour (Rati Agnihotri) who is also the wife of his boss (Neeraj Vora). Then there is Gulshan Grover, a 'daku' (in the 21st century no less) who has '50 crores ka maal' to be sold. His 'bada bhai' Johny Lever is a woman trapped in the body of a man. Their accomplice Mukesh Tiwari has troubles of his own. A village has it's 'laalchi mukhia' (Manoj Joshi), a mad cop (Shakti Kapoor) and a 'mausi'.

This isn't all as while the entire first half is spent in establishing each of these characters, the second half is an unabashed copy of 'Sholay' with a little bit of 'Tees Maar Khan' added as well. So here we have Aftab's friends like Rajpal Yadav, Sanjay Mishra and Vijay Raaz taking turns as Jai and Veeru respectively and trying their luck with local 'basanti (Shweta Keswani). Then there is this another Shweta (Tiwari) who makes a mysterious appearance as a 'nautanki' girl, hence completing the hat-trick of Shwetas, what with Shweta Bhardwaj (seen earlier in 'Mission Istanbul') gyrating to the opening credit totle roll item number.

With multiple such stories running in parallel, BBB could have gone in any direction. Either it could have been a full on laugh riot or may have completely got derailed. Well, the film certainly doesn't take the former route though it saves itself from getting derailed either due to it's fast paced approach. This is facilitated through gags that arrive one after another. Though not many of them truly succeed, they at least give one a hope of something better in scene to follow.

This is enabled through the trio of Sanjay, Rajpal and Vijay which does manage to get some laughs on screen. One would have expected Aftab to be a part of many more comic sequences since he is pretty comfortable with this genre. However the director actually allows comedians to take centre-stage and the love story of Aftab and Priyanka Kothari (hardly seen in the film with her limited dialogues being dubbed by someone else) being relegated to the background. Even Johny Lever's track is completely forced when one would have expected more meat out of the proceedings.

Thankfully BBB has song and dance routine coming at just the right junctures and one can clearly sense that most of the film's spend was on making these portions of the film look good and reasonably expensive. So whether it is 'Daanv Laga Le' (Shweta Bhardwaj), 'Shalu (Mallika Sherawat) or 'Achaar' (Shweta Tiwari) - each of them has been well picturised that helps in bringing on the entertainment quotient.

The climax though will have its fair share of detractors. While the film has absolutely nothing for the class audience, amongst masses the extended sequence around 'bomb in the suitcase' may just about bring on some laughs. Of course everything that happens from pre-climax (Shweta finding her lost father) to the climax (Om Puri arriving with police) is way too convenient but for a film made in 3 months and limited budget, one can't expect an extensive thought process.

Still, despite very low expectations, BBB turns out to be a barely passable affair. Sad, because this could have been a much more 'dhamaal' experience.

Rating: **